Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks)

by J F Bone

  “I am Sar Lauton, of the Eglan Directorate, commander of this ship,” the alien said in fluent Terran.

  “And I am Commander Alton Fiske of the Confederation Navy,” Fiske replied. “I have transferred my men to this ship since you didn’t leave much of mine.”

  “For that I am sorry,” the Eglan said. “You fought well and deserved a better end. However, you still have won. It is finished.” The Eglan smiled bitterly. “You see, Commander, we never knew that war could be such horror. To many of my crew it was too horrible. You undoubtedly saw some of them on your way here.”

  Fiske nodded. “Now about the surrender terms—” he began.

  “There are no terms,” the alien said woodenly. “You have won.” His face twitched. “Can’t you appreciate what your weapon has done? I am an Eglan. An Eglan never surrenders. Yet I and half my crew have surrendered. Don’t you appreciate the implications of that? Can’t you realize that the Directorate is doomed—that you have won a victory here that is more complete than any we have won in a thousand years of war?”

  “But—”

  “From birth,” the Eglan went on, ignoring the abortive interruption, “we of the warrior caste have been trained to believe that there is no glory other than in battle—that the honor of the Directorate and its supremacy is paramount—that the Directorate must expand to bring the blessings of order to the less favored—that the orders of a superior are to be obeyed unquestioningly—that it is only right that we subordinate ourselves to the greater glory of the Eglan race—that our minds and lives are dedicated to this service—that there is no higher honor, no greater glory than to die for the Eglani.” He sounded as though he was reciting a litany that had suddenly become no longer believable.

  “But this,. I find, is wrong. Such a belief is not life. It is death—extinction first of the soul, then of the mind, and finally of the body. Your weapon struck us here at the core of our belief and through our weakest link—a link we had to keep because, paradoxically, it was also the source of our strength and unity. Through our neurocommunicators your feelings, emotions, and beliefs waged battle with our own. And yours won because their truth was more basic and more just than our own. And so we were disarmed. We were confused. We could not hold control. And finally we could not kill—not even ourselves!” The muscle in his cheek twitched again.

  Fiske drew a deep breath. With sudden understanding he recalled his own feelings when he had heard Ellen on that tape. But there must have been more than Ellen—much more. All those others—and somehow the Eglani had sensed the true meaning behind that nauseous gabble! And the meaning had destroyed them!

  Of course, this single action wasn’t the end of the war, but it was the beginning of the end. The war would go on, but now it wouldn’t be humanity with its back against the wall. The Eglani, too, would know the meaning of defeat. Fiske sighed. Somehow he couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. They were too understanding!

  “Thank you,” Sar Lauton said unexpectedly. “Your sympathy is appreciated.”

  Fiske looked at him uncomfortably. “Take him away, Oley,” he said, “and put him with the others. I’m getting this crate out of here.” Fiske sank into the control chair and scanned the board. There was no problem here. He knew Eglan centralized controls almost as well as his own. One man could operate this ship if necessary although it took many others to fight and service it.

  He energized the drives and the ship moved ahead. The viewscreens glowed framing star studded space and the battered shape of the “Dauntless” falling slowly astern. The old girl lay quietly, coasting through space, gleaming faintly in the cold light of the distant stars. Slowly she shrank to a toy as the Eglan ship moved away.

  It was time, Fiske thought, as he adjusted a vernier dial and pushed a small lever. The faint ion trail of the torpedo shone like a pale swordblade in the darkness vanishing toward the derelict astern. Seconds passed and then a gigantic fireball blotted out the stars, and with its dying the “Dauntless” was gone save for a fiercely radiating haze of molecules that spread rapidly outward through circumambient space . . .

  PEDERSEN came in quietly and took a seat opposite Fiske. “The prisoners are secure, sir, and our men are ready for Cth jump.” he said.

  “Good. We’ll start familiarization after we reach cruising component.”

  “Aye sir.”

  “The “Dauntless” is gone. Fiske said absently as he energized the converters and the ship shivered at the border of hyperspace.

  “I know. I saw her die.”

  “She was a good ship.”

  “The best. She won our war.”

  “I hated to kill her, Oley.”

  “I know that too. But you had to do it.”

  Fiske sighed as he took the ship up through the Cth components. It handled smoothly enough, but not as smoothly as the “Dauntless.” The two men sat silently with the control board between them.

  Fiske spoke finally. “You know, Oley,” he said. “I thought it was a calamity when Bordoni broke his recordings.”

  Pedersen looked at him soberly. “You might still be right,” he said. “We’re going to win this war now. We’re going to win it completely. They can’t stop us now we know their weakness.”

  “And that’s a calamity?”

  “Possibly. After all—what are we going to do when we win? What sort of conquerors will we be? How will we treat them and the races they have conquered? We have no precedents. We’ve bypassed other intelligent races in our sphere. We’ve left them alone because we didn’t know how to handle them, and we knew we didn’t know. But we can’t leave the Eglani alone. They’re going to be our responsibility—and we’ve never learned to rule.”

  Fiske stared, shrugged, and grinned. “Could be that the Eglani will win after all—even though we defeat them in battle. They have the administrative experience.”

  Pedersen chuckled without humor. “You see what I mean? It still may be a calamity.” . . .

  THE END

  SPECIAL EFFECT

  Martinelli’s passion was music. And before it was slaked men—and other beings—suffered, thrilled and died in the search for the eldritch sounds of the System.

  “YOU’VE heard the ‘Odalisque’, I expect,” Martinelli asked.

  “Who hasn’t?” I said.

  “Raposnikov at his best,” he said, “and his best is very good indeed.”

  “There’s no one like him, past or present,” I enthused. “Nicolai Ilarionovitch Raposnikov was the finest composer who ever lived, his handling of special effects alone would make him great but his intimate understanding of music, his feeling for balance and harmony, his exquisite employment of modern technology and ancient art to produce music that can be felt and sensed, as well as heard, why—there’s never been a composer who could compare—” I sputtered, losing my eulogy in my enthusiasm.

  You might gather from this outburst that I like music—and you’d be right—although to look at me you’d hardly figure it. Spacemen look like what they are—Muscle Beach boys with a prison pallor. We’re an anachronism on an Earth welded to the twenty-hour week and balanced caloric diets. Compared to the slim bronzed groundlings, we sailors stand out like Charolais bulls in a herd of Angus heifers. Some of us try Mantan to blend in with the general background but we never manage to make it. Our eyes give us away. You can’t spend months on end looking for trouble without developing a certain restlessness of the eyeballs that refuses to let one’s vision linger too long upon any one object; “Dancing Eyes” the groundlings call us. They give us our character and part of our reputation. We’re the last of the pioneers, our direct ancestors are the sailors, the conquistadores and the mountain men who opened up the western hemisphere back in the Dark Ages. In short, we’re romantic hellers.

  The only trouble, as far as I’m concerned, is that I don’t want to be a romantic heller. Sure—I like women—but I’d rather spend an evening at Berlino’s eating a good steak than taking a two-minute break at
a Calorie Counter. I’d rather sit in Carnegie Hall listening to good music than sweating at Roseland dancing to squirm. And while it’s fun to kiss a girl goodnight, I have no desire to have her cluttering up my apartment until the following morning. As far as I’m concerned, I’d rather live back in those quiet days of the middle Twentieth Century than in these hectic ones of the middle Twenty-second.

  I sighed and let my gaze flicker over the dark man who sat across the table from me. His name was Olaf Martinelli and he was a conductor. He’d been on the podium at Carnegie several times when I was in the audience. He wasn’t bad—at times he was even great, but he had a poor reputation in music circles. He was a glory-grabber, a tyrant, a disciplinarian of the old Toscanini school, and about as trustworthy as a Venerian swamp sucker on a hot day. I didn’t like him by reputation, and his personality wasn’t much better. He was too dark, too tall, too smooth and too well informed about my habits. He had looked me up, run me down, and cornered me in Eddie’s Bar where I occasionally stop for a drink. He’d been thoroughly briefed, except that he didn’t know I distrusted tall, smooth characters, and that I have no faith in artists as businessmen, Any day I’d rather take a chance with a hard-headed contractor than an artist. Painters, actors, musicians—they’re all alike, people who usually have their feet firmly planted on a cloud. Once I was soft enough to freight an entire musical comedy group to Mars which was a mistake since the company went broke and I couldn’t sell their contracts for beans. Bad artists are a glut on the Martian market, and I wasn’t about to get in another jam like that. By sticking to regular business I manage to run a fairly profitable operation. I own the “Virgin Queen” and I intend to keep on owning her. I’m not eager to take on speculation charters or cargo. Let the guys who are riding high do that! Small operators like me have to stick to hard cash and let the big chances go by. We never make millions but we stay alive and do what we like to do—which is travelling the spacelanes.

  MARTINELLI, however, had a proposition. He leaned forward across the table and tried to hold my shifting blue eyes with his protuberant brown ones. “You’re just the man I’ve been looking for,” he said. “A spaceman who appreciates good music. You’re a rarity, my friend, a rarity.”

  “What’s so odd about liking music?”

  His eyebrows rose. “Have you ever considered the statistical improbability of finding an independent spacer who understands and appreciates Beethoven, Tchaikowsky, Dvorak, Moussorgsky, Sibelius, Taylor, Shostakovich, Callendar, and Rostanzo?”

  “Not to mention a few others,” I added helpfully.

  He nodded. “Actually, Captain Lundfors, you’re unique. And you’re precisely the man I have been looking for.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Would you like to charter your ship for a year’s cruise?” I gulped. A year’s charter would get my pint-sized operation solidly on its feet. I could buy some needed tube liners and insulation. I could have the “Virgin Queen” drydocked and thoroughly overhauled. I could clean up the back-pay accounts of my crew. I could buy myself a new uniform to replace the threadbare grays I was now wearing. A year’s charter would be a dream.

  “It would cost you plenty,” I said.

  “How much?”

  “Two million credits.” Martinelli winced. “What does that rocket of yours run on—gold?” he asked.

  “Plutonium. It’s more expensive.”

  “I didn’t realize these things cost so much,” Martinelli’s voice was flat. “I don’t think I can afford it.”

  “I might be able to shave the costs a little,” I said dubiously, “but a year’s cruise can be damned expensive. It depends on where you want to go. Incidentally, where do you want to go?”

  “Hmm—let’s see—Mercury, Venus, Mars, Titan, Io, Callisto, Ganymede, and—oh yes—Pluto.”

  “All the inhabited worlds in the system!” I said. “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you that if we can come to terms,” Martinelli said. “Until then, that’s my secret.”

  “We can dicker,” I said, “but it won’t be much less than two million—not with an itinerary like that. Or do you realize that it will take you nine months of that year just to travel to those places? Pluto’s a long way out, and Mercury’s pretty close to the sun. Frankly, it’s a cheap price.” He shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m not a poor man but that’s pretty steep.”

  “Tell you what we can do,” I offered helpfully. “After we check your credit rating, we can go down to Uni vac Center and put the problem up to the computers.” Actually I’d do that anyway before I ever made a smoothie like Martinelli a firm offer. “We’ll figure it as cost of operation plus ten percent. That ought to be fair enough. You lay out the itinerary and I’ll insert the Queen’s latest operating data. We add ten percent to that, and if you’re willing to go on from there, I’m your man.”

  “That sounds fair enough,” Martinelli said.

  “Of course,” I added, “there’ll be the usual demurrage, port charges, change of destination clauses, and an Act of God clause included in the contract.”

  Martinelli looked at me with a faint light of respect in his bulging brown eyes. “You don’t miss a bet, do you?” he asked.

  “I’ve been dealing with contractors for twenty years,” I said drily.

  He laughed, and I chuckled with him.

  “I’ll file our contract in Public Archives,” he said, “providing we agree on one. Some day it’ll be a historical document.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “Do you think they’ll accept it?” I asked. “What sort of business would make a freighter’s contract a public record?”

  “Wait,” Martinelli said.

  I shrugged.

  THE basic figure Univac gave us was two million, one hundred and thirty thousand, five hundred and twenty-seven credits. Martinelli whistled with dismay. “I should have taken your original offer.”

  “It wasn’t firm,” I reminded him, thinking as I did that computers were almost as easy to fool as conductors. With new tube liners in the “Queen” I could shave half a million off that figure. But Univac didn’t know that. It had to work upon the data I had given it, and new high performance tube liners weren’t included in that data. For two hundred thousand I could have the “Queen” docked, relined and refitted. I would be getting the equivalent of a new ship and nearly three hundred kilocredits to boot.

  “The other figures I’ve checked were all about the same as yours,” Martinelli said glumly, “except for IPG, That bunch wanted three million.”

  “Interplanetary has newer and faster ships,” I said. “And, besides, they’re a big outfit.”

  “I don’t need a big outfit,” Martinelli replied. “Yours will do nicely. Now let’s go up to my office. We’ll have a law firm make up the contract. And then I’ll tell you what I want you to do.”

  “You won’t mind if I select the lawyers?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “You can hire the Attorney General if you wish.” He sounded indifferent.

  “Akers, Callahan, Weintraub, and Kabele’ll do well enough,” I said. “They’ve handled my freight contracts for the past decade.”

  “They’re a good firm,” he agreed. “I’ve done business with them once or twice on tour contracts.”

  I looked at my copy of the contract and nodded. As far as I could see it was fair enough. It had the usual penalty clauses for nonperformance, but essentially it was a standard freight contract. I agreed to deliver Brother Martinelli and such equipment as he would bring with him to the eight inhabited worlds of the Solar Union. The order in which the worlds were to be visited was at my discretion. The only bad feature was the time element. One year was all I had to complete the trip. And that wasn’t too much time. One minor accident, one bad touchdown, could ruin me. But I had fulfilled worse contracts than this one and I had no cause for complaint. I knew the “Queen” inside out and was perfectly aware of what she could and could not do. This job she could h
andle.

  “All right,” I said. “Now what are we making this trip for?”

  “To collect sounds,” Martinelli said.

  “Sounds?”

  “Remember we were talking about Raposnikov?”

  I nodded.

  “You’d really have to know the man to appreciate this, but Nicolai Ilarionovitch was a Unionist all his adult life—and when the Solar Union was established, he decided to write a symphony honoring it. He finished it just before he died last year. It is his master work, his greatest production, the piece toward which his entire life was directed. It’s called the “Nine Worlds Symphony” and is dedicated to the Solar Union.” Martinelli looked at me, his brown eyes glittering. “It’s probably the most valuable single piece of property in existence today,” he said. “And I own it on condition that I present the entire score exactly as it was written in its debut on the tenth anniversary of the Union. And that date is a year and a half away.”

  “Then why are you hiring a space ship?” I asked. “It seems to me that you’d be hiring a symphony orchestra.”

  “It’s not that easy,” Martinelli said. “You see, Raposnikov took a leaf out of Tchaikovski’s book, only he went one step farther.”

  “Tchaikovski?”

  “Remember the 1812 Festival Overture?”

  I nodded. “The one with the special effects?” I asked. “The cannon, the Moscow bells, and the brass band?”

  “That’s the one. Well—Raposnikov out-Tchaikovskied Tchaikovski. His piece calls for a steam hammer working a steel ingot, a Dixieland Jazz Band, a spaceship taking off, the sound of the lava flows on Mercury’s twilight zone, the bellow of a Venerean swamp sucker, the temple bells at K’vasteh, the Corens’ warcry, the nesting call of a flock of Ionion Kalliks, Callistan whistlers, a hegemon, and a Plutonian ice fall. Oh, yes, and the sound of a hulled spaceship.”